Bitcoin Holds Above $43,000 as Crypto Rally Pauses. Jobs Report Doesn’t Shake Prices.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were little changed, pausing near the peak of a rally that pushed prices to 20-month highs in recent days. Cryptos have benefited from the macro backdrop of late and Friday’s U.S. jobs report did little to shake prices.

The price of Bitcoin rose 1% over the past 24 hours to $43,650, with the largest digital asset still below its recent peak above $44,000—which marks the highest level since April 2022, before cryptos plunged into a brutal and prolonged bear market. Bitcoin has gained some…

Bitcoin

and other cryptocurrencies were little changed, pausing near the peak of a rally that pushed prices to 20-month highs in recent days. Cryptos have benefited from the macro backdrop of late and Friday’s U.S. jobs report did little to shake prices.

The price of Bitcoin rose 1% over the past 24 hours to $43,650, with the largest digital asset still below its recent peak above $44,000—which marks the highest level since April 2022, before cryptos plunged into a brutal and prolonged bear market. Bitcoin has gained some two-thirds since mid-October, snapping out of a multi-month stretch of subdued crypto trading and sparking calls for a new bull market.

“This week’s performance was the best since late October, when Bitcoin broke above $30,000,” said Rachel Lin, CEO of trading platform SynFutures. “This week’s performance also heavily undermines the idea that we are still in a bear market rally.”

A perfect storm of factors has helped Bitcoin march skyward, including optimism that U.S. regulators will soon approve the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which would be expected to usher in a fresh wave of investor interest in cryptos. An improving macroeconomic backdrop, with expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates multiple times next year, has also helped—as has the fact that token supply is historically tight, with few sellers in the market pinching prices higher.

Bitcoin was set to react Friday to the U.S. jobs report for November along the

Dow Jones Industrial Average

and

S&P 500.

The closely watched labor market indicator could advance expectations over the pathway for rates ahead of the Fed’s monetary policy meeting next week. The U.S. economy added more jobs than expected last month, but the trend is still of slowing growth that should allow the Fed to orchestrate a “soft landing”—taming inflation without causing recession. Crypto prices were little changed after the jobs figures.

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Beyond Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies continued to rally, with

Ether

—the second-largest token—gaining 4.5% to $2,350. Smaller cryptos or altcoins were also higher, with

Cardano

climbing 23% and

Polygon

popping 7%. Memecoins were more muted, with

Dogecoin

up 3% and

Shiba Inu

4% higher.

Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com

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